


a pain that's not my own

by jennycaakes



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Related, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8179471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennycaakes/pseuds/jennycaakes
Summary: “A soulmate,” he says to Gale, “is someone who is perfect for you in all ways.” Gale wrinkles his nose. “Someone who’ll love you for everything you are,” he says. “Soulmates, Gale, they—they feel the same pain you do, they get the same bruises and same cuts. Because if you’re meant to be in pain, so are they. Your pain hurts them, their pain hurts you."--Madge Undersee has a hickey that doesn't belong to her. Gale isn't sure he wants a soulmate. --Happy Gadge day! <3





	

**Author's Note:**

> so I really love soulmates AUs. while I'm not super involved in the gadge fandom at all I owe these people everything. they gave me the courage to post my first fic, they gave me the love and support I needed to keep going, and they generally were a family that I didn't know I had. I love y'all, thanks for everything. I hope you like it!

Gale’s a child when he first notices that he has bruises. It’s hard for him to find them considering his skin is so dark, but when he holds his squirmy little brother Vick, Gale realizes that they’re there, sprinkled across his arms. It isn’t until he sits and studies them does he realize they’re small, like fingerprints, like someone had been gripping his arm for dear life.

He pokes one. It hurts. He frowns.

“Ma,” he calls. Gale’s nearly ten years old now, and their home in the Seam isn’t all that big. He hears his mother climb off of her knees from where she’s hunched over a bin and scrubbing at some stranger’s clothes, and hurry down the small hallway before ducking her head into the back room. “I’ve got bruises,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow at him, a smile playing at her lips. “That’s what happens to little boys like you when you follow your father around the woods.”

Gale tips his chin back and smiles. He’s only been allowed in the woods for a few weeks now, but he loves it. Pop says he’s a fast learner, that he’s good at making snares. Gale caught his first rabbit just a few days ago.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Gale says.

But when Pop sees the marks later that week, his thick eyebrows furrow. He holds Gale’s wrist gently and twists his arm, studying the bruises, the fingerprints, with a frown.

Gale doesn’t know what to think until later when he hears Pop’s hushed voice. “I don’t grip him that hard, and neither do you,” he says. Gale’s craning his neck. He’s can’t help himself from being nosy. “Gale’s got no reason to have bruises like that, Hazelle.” Gale lifts his arm as they talk, poking at his bruises. They’re mostly faded now, and they don’t hurt much at all. “Don’t you know what that means?”

Ma heaves a sigh. “Nothing good, Asher.”

\--

Gale’s in middle school when he learns about soulmates. They’re not taught about them, absolutely not. The fact that something could be more powerful than President Snow, than the Capitol? It’s not even allowed to be acknowledged. But word spreads anyway, and Gale can’t help but listen.

“That’s how they found her,” Delly Cartwright is murmuring to Madge Undersee. It’s recess and it’s a dreary day. The sky is spitting rain and people are shuffling around in their rain jackets, wishing they could go inside already. “They beat him black and blue so that she was too.”

“What’re you talking about?” Gale demands. Both girls with their pretty hair and soft blue eyes look up at him in surprised. “What’re you saying?”

Delly glances around before hissing it out. “ _Soulmates_ ,” she says. “The apothecary was caught giving out medicine to people for free so the Peacekeepers beat him. And then they found out his wife was beaten too—because they’re soulmates. So they took them both.”

Gale narrows his eyes at them. “What do you _mean_?”

“You haven’t heard of soulmates?” Delly asks. Madge doesn’t speak, but that’s not new. The mayor’s daughter has always been quiet. “They’re forbidden.” The fact that Gale has this girl from town teaching him something new is disheartening, but still, he listens. Because he hasn’t. “If you get a bruise or a cut or anything like that—your soulmate gets it too.”

He thinks back to those bruises that he had, the way his parents had spoken in hushed voices, and wonders if maybe he’s different.

So at dinner, he brings it up. “What’s a soulmate?”

Pop drops his spoon. Ma’s eyes get wide.

“Who told you about soulmates?” Ma asks.

“He’s in _school_ , Hazelle,” Pop says, “people _talk_.”

“What did they _say_?” Ma pushes.

Pop waves her off. “A soulmate,” he says to Gale, “is someone who is perfect for you in all ways.” Gale wrinkles his nose. “Someone who’ll love you for everything you are,” he says. “Soulmates, Gale, they—they feel the same pain you do, they get the same bruises and same cuts. Because if you’re meant to be in pain, so are they. Your pain hurts them, their pain hurts you."

“That’s impossible,” Gale says.

“Not with soulmates,” Ma whispers.

Everyone’s quiet for a moment, even Rory and Vick, before Pop adds, “They’re very rare. The Universe, the Fates, they link people all on their own.”

“Fates?” Gale questions.

“A power above _everyone_ ,” Pop tells him. “Something unexplainable, something pure and true.”

Gale doesn’t want to ask if they think he has one. Because he doesn’t think he’s _very rare,_ or that some sort of power that’s unimaginable has chosen him. He looks just like any other kid on the street, has a life that’s just as hard. He’s not _special_. And there certainly isn’t anyone out there that is perfect for him in all ways. No one’s meant to feel his pain but him, and he certainly can’t handle anyone else’s. His nose is still wrinkled.

“I don’t have one of those,” Gale says.

“Sweetheart,” Ma says, leaning toward him. Her eyes flicker to Rory, young and mouthy and repeating everything he’s hearing. “You need to know. Soulmates, they’re against the law.”

That makes Gale pause. “Wait, _what_?” His frown deepens. “That doesn’t make sense,” he mutters. “But I thought—people can’t control that. Right?”

“Right,” his father agrees. “But they’re still against the law.”

He thinks for a minute. “So’s hunting,” Gale says.

His mother sighs. “It’s different, Gale.”

He isn’t sure he understands why.

\--

Gale ignores all talk of soulmates.

It might be forbidden, illegal, whatever, but everyone at school still whispers. Girls gather in groups and speculate where their bruises have come from (refusing to admit that they’re just _clumsy_ ). And guys laugh during gym class, begging that this girl or that girl isn’t their soulmate (they’d be lucky to have half the girls they name). But Gale wants nothing to do with it.

Because he still gets bruises.

They’re pretty rare (just like soulmates) but they do happen. Someone out there grips onto Gale’s soulmate so hard it leaves marks. Sometimes they show up on his arm, sometimes they show up on his shoulder, sometimes they show up closer to his neck. He worries, despite everything inside of him saying not to worry.

\--

Gale’s 14 when he cuts his finger on a wire. He frowns at the mark and lifts his finger to his lips, sucking before it starts to bleed. His father smiles.

“You’ve got to be careful,” he says. “Someone else out there is getting your cuts, too.”

Gale’s frown deepens. “We don’t know that,” he says.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” his father reprimands, but there’s still a smile there. There’s always a smile on Asher Hawthorne’s face when they’re over the fence, deep in the woods. Gale’s gotten into the habit of perpetually scowling. “What’re you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” Gale mutters back. “Dying?”

A laugh bellows out of Asher. “Everyone dies, Gale.”

“If the Capitol finds out I’ve got a soulmate then I’m a goner,” Gale says. And he can’t die, not yet. He wants to see his newest sibling, considering his mother’s so close to giving birth again. He wants to graduate from his classes. He wants to watch the Capitol burn. Soulmates, that thing called Fate, it scares the Capitol too much. They’d slit Gale’s throat without even thinking about it. “No thanks.”

“You don’t understand how incredibly rare you are,” his father continues. “How _amazing_ this is, Gale.”

“You and Ma aren’t soulmates and you still love each other,” he counters. “I don’t need a soulmate. And I don’t want one.”

Asher’s still smiling. “You can’t say that before you’ve even met ‘em.”

\--

The mines collapse three weeks later. Gale slams his fist so hard into the wall that it splits his skin.

\--

Katniss is… something new.

She’s young and inexperienced when it comes to being in the woods, at least in Gale’s eyes, but they learn to trust one another. They become hunting partners. They become a team, a family. And one afternoon, when Gale’s fifteen and Katniss is thirteen, Katniss laughs so brightly that Gale feels something warm in his chest.

He realizes with a start that he wouldn’t mind of Katniss was his soulmate.

Gale can’t stop himself from asking, “Do you believe in soulmates?”

Her smile slips away at once. “I don’t think it matters if we believe in them or not,” Katniss says quickly, looking away. “Everyone knows they exist.” They sit quietly for a while before Katniss manages to look back at him. She hesitates. But then her fingers are working to get the ribbon out of her hair, to loosen her braid. She tugs on her hair and shows Gale a scar that slips from her ear back to the base of her neck. And then she says, “It’s not mine.”

Gale reaches up on instinct, feeling himself from a scar he knows doesn’t exist.

“Whose is it?” he asks. He ignores the way his disappointment is hot inside his chest.

“I don’t know,” Katniss says.

But the way she says it, Gale thinks that maybe she does.

\--

They sell strawberries to the mayor’s daughter.

Gale knows very little about Madge Undersee, but he does know that he doesn’t trust her. How _can_ he? Her father’s in charge of the entire district. And there’s something in her eyes like she knows something she shouldn’t. And she’s quiet, so fucking quiet.

Gale’s sixteen now. And he might not trust Madge Undersee, but he won’t deny that she’s beautiful.

\--

Instead of worrying about soulmates, Gale spends his time keeping his family fed.

Vick and Rory are growing like weeds, long arms and long legs that seem to go on forever. And Posy’s the only girl so Gale does what he can to make her feel special (whether that be a trade for some ribbon in the Hob or an old beaten doll as it’s all he can afford). And Hazelle, his patient and tired mother, she deserves everything.

So Gale gives and he gives and he gives, hunting before school and after, trading on the black market, refusing to let Rory put his name into the Hunger Games a second time so they can get more food. He just _gives_. He doesn’t have _time_ to think about soulmates.

He does manage a few nights off, though. Thom tells him he’s too stiff, that he needs a break, so after slipping him a flask full of white liquor he manages to drag Gale down to the Slag Heap.

It’s Sunday the next day and Gale’s hungover, but he drags himself out to the woods anyway. Katniss is waiting for him, annoyed that he’s late, and doesn’t question the hickey on his neck. “We can’t get to the mayor’s too late,” she says. “Madge told us before 9 or the maid might get it.”

“God forbid,” Gale mutters.

They pick strawberries together, check their snares another time, and then head to the mayor’s.

Gale’s head is still foggy when Madge answers the door. If her skin wasn’t so pale he wouldn’t have noticed, but there on her neck right above her collarbone is a hickey, dark and purple. He pauses. He stares. His own hand lifts to his own throat, pressing on the mark to make sure it’s there. Katniss doesn’t notice Gale as he pauses, and she doesn’t notice the way Madge’s eyes widen slightly, or when Madge covers her own hickey on her neck.

“Since when do you go out, Undersee?” Gale murmurs.

“I don’t,” she answers sharply.

And he knows, he knows, he knows.

\--

He wishes his dad was still alive.

If his dad was still alive, he’d know what to say. If his dad was still alive, Gale wouldn’t feel like this. Stressed, and small, and tired.

 _The mayor’s daughter_. It feels impossible. It sounds impossible. The idea of a soulmate itself is impossible, but that soulmate being Madge Undersee? Even more unlikely. He’s some nobody from the Seam, a boy with too much anger, an illegal hunter and a soon-to-be miner. His soulmate can’t be _the mayor’s daughter_. He doesn’t even know who to talk to. He doesn’t know what to _do_.

Gale thinks about the bruises that he’s gotten—the bruises that _Madge_ has gotten—and though they were never large or incredibly frequent he can’t help but wonder why she received them.

But then he stops again. Because how is he _sure_? He has to be sure. He has to know completely that Madge Undersee is that other half that’s whispered about in the hallways.

It must be the panic that carries him to Thom’s house, but soon he’s knocking on his friend’s door and waiting for him to answer. And then Thom’s there, looking confused and suspicious, and Gale says the first thing he can think of.

“Punch me in the face.”

\--

Madge Undersee isn’t sporting a shiner the next day at school, but the relief that comes with that only lasts for a few moments. Because she’s marching up to him a few moments later, her hands in fists at her side. The panic that flooded him the day before when he thought he might’ve found his soulmate flood him again, and he’s frozen.

“What did you do?” she hisses. Gale glances around and people seem to notice that she’s approaching him, but she’s relentless. “I can _feel_ it, you idiot!”

Gale sets his jaw and jerks his head to the side. “Not here,” he manages.

“What did you do?” she says again, her voice sharp. “Pay someone to punch you in the face?”

And this is why Madge Undersee can’t be his soulmate. “We don’t all have the ability to pay people for stupid shit,” he snaps. She heaves a deep breath. “And no you—” Gale glances around again before dropping his voice. “You don’t even have a black eye.”

“Makeup,” she practically growls. Gale was convinced that Madge Undersee was soft and sweet, but there’s fire in her eyes now. “You think I can get away with things like a black eye that isn’t supposed to be there _in the mayor’s house_?” She shakes her head. “I know you’re not stupid, Gale. They would kill me.”

The reality sets in with Gale quickly – that Madge is scared, too.

And then the fact that this is real. This is happening to them.

The world seems to be silent around them. Gale glances around, shooting an angry look at the bystanders who have their heads tipped to the side in question, before looking back at Madge. If he squints he can see it, the faint purple around her eye, the swelling. He wonders if her parents know, if they’re helping her hide, or if she’s alone in this.

“We can’t talk about this here,” he murmurs. “Come to the meadow tonight.”

\--

Gale’s in the meadow long before he expects Madge to arrive.

He supposes that he could’ve played this off longer, acted like he didn’t know, but his parents didn’t raise a coward. In fact, it would be _infinitely_ easier, a million times less risky, to have hidden from Madge. To run from this. Because hunting, that puts Gale’s life on the line. But this, a soulmate, this is riskier. Especially considering she’s in the mayor’s house.

He paces. He drags his hands through his hair. He needs to figure out a way to _fix_ this.

“I’m not that horrible,” Madge’s voice comes through the quiet. Gale pauses, turning to look at where she’s approaching. He heaves out a sigh. “I know you—you must hate me, but I’m not that horrible, Gale.”

This is too complicated for him. So he says, “This is too complicated.”

She offers a smile. “Not really.” She stops walking when she’s a few feet from him and they stand there, in the meadow, looking at once another. “Aren’t you curious?” she asks. “As to why it’s us?”

Because Gale’s thinking about the risks, and Madge is thinking about Fate.

“No,” he answers. Because he’s not. “Without me,” Gale says, “my family’s fucked. My mom can’t take care of all the kids on her own. Rory’s still too young to hunt. And if something happens to me…” he trails off, because he needs her to know the weight of this. She frowns at him, because clearly she already understands. “No one can know,” he says.

“What makes you think I would tell someone?” she asks. They hold one another’s gaze. “You think me being the mayor’s daughter—you think that makes me untouchable?” Gale’s eyes flicker away. “I’ve been hiding your bruises for years, Gale.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t get bruises, that’s you.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You’re a hunter,” she says. “Your ankles get torn up when you walk through thorn bushes. Your fingers bleed when you set snares.” Madge shakes her head. “Once you were attacked by—a bore, maybe. Or a wild dog. My ribs hurt for days.” She corrects herself. “ _Your_ ribs hurt for days.” Gale sighs another time, unsure of what to say. “Maybe it's not bruises but..." Madge pauses. "I know it’s a lot,” she said. “But I’ve always wondered who you _are_ …”

“You _know_ who I am,” Gale grits out. He stops himself from balling his hands into fists. “I break the law every day,” he says. “I’ve got an attitude problem. I’m from the Seam, Undersee.” He shakes his head. “Soulmate or not, this can’t change anything. It puts both of us at risk.” She opens her mouth, maybe to protest, maybe to encourage him to give it a chance, but he stops her. “A guy like me and a girl like you hanging out all of a sudden?” Gale asks. “People wouldn’t like it. They’d talk. They’d figure it out. And then we’re dead.”

“Gale,” she tries.

But he’s made up his mind. This is the only option.

“No one can know.”

\--

Prim is reaped, and Katniss volunteers for her.

One minute she’s there and Gale’s frustrated that she’s so beautiful, and then Katniss is on stage shaking hands with Peeta Mellark. And then she’s gone.

Gale’s almost in a trance in the hours following saying goodbye. He’s at the Justice Hall, then he’s in the woods, and he can’t even think. And then he gets slapped.

The pain is immediate and horrible, surprising and sharp. He shakes his head and lifts his hand to cradle his face, feeling it throb under his palm. Because he’s alone in the woods, and no one’s slapped Gale. But rather, someone’s slapped Madge. And it _stings_. He’s not ready when it comes a second time, and then someone is digging their hands into Madge’s shoulder _so hard_ that Gale lets out a grunt and tries to push away a person that isn’t even there.

He isn’t sure if it’s concern that drags him to the Undersee mansion, or maybe just curiosity, but he ends up knocking on the backdoor a half hour later asking for Madge.

She arrives still in her reaping dress (white, an annoying choice for a place so full of coal) with a pink ribbon in her hair. Her eyes are wet, but she hasn’t been crying.

“What happened?” Gale asks.

Madge shoots him a look that could kill. “You made up your mind,” she forces out. “You want nothing to do with this. You don’t have the right to ask.”

She slams the door in his face.

\--

As the Games progress and Katniss makes it further along (and it’s revealed, though not directly, that Peeta might be that soulmate of hers after all), so do Madge’s injuries.

Gale spends one night with his feet soaking in hot water because of how badly they’re aching, and at one point his cheeks start to hurt and he can’t help but think it’s because Madge has been forced to smile for hours straight. Now that he knows Madge is that soulmate he’s been running from, he’s acutely aware of every single ounce of pain he has to share with her.

When he sees her in school later in the week she looks _exhausted_. Gale’s caught between worrying about Katniss, feeding both his and her family, and (well he wouldn’t call it _worrying_ but) thinking about Madge. Somehow he manages to corner her at lunch one day, her eyes trained on the screen that’s playing the Games.

“You’re tired,” he says. She practically rolls her eyes. “Do they hit you?” he asks. Because he doesn’t trust the mayor or his wife, and he doesn’t trust anyone who hurts their children. “Your parents.”

“You’re delusional,” she answers.

“Then—”

“I’ve got Capitol citizens in my house, Gale,” she says, her voice dropping low. “I mean they—sometimes my parents grab me, but not to punish me.” She clearly thinks about how to word this. “It’s more dangerous for me to misspeak or slouch than you would think,” Madge tells him. “I’m always at my best. And when I’m not…” she trails off. When she’s not, her mother grips her for dear life. “My parents are scared too,” she whispers.

Gale hesitates. Because there’s more.

“You were slapped,” he says.

“My mother was high on morphling,” Madge answers, her eyes flickering somewhere else. “I told her I gave Katniss the mockingjay pin, and…” she trails off. Madge shakes her head. “It was stupid of me.”

“She shouldn’t have hit you,” Gale practically growls.

“Don’t act like you care,” Madge snaps back. “Like I said—you made your choice.”

He waits for her to storm away but she doesn’t. She just stands there, looking at Madge who has this fire in her eyes that he likes a little too much. He’s always thought of her as quiet, subdued, but there’s more to her. He can _see_ it. And suddenly, surprisingly, Gale craves it. But then his eyes flicker to the screen with the Games and he’s brought back to reality. He’s reminded this is no time to have a soulmate, especially not Madge.

“I start at the mines soon,” Gale says instead. Madge’s eyebrows come together. “Aches and bruises,” he tells her.

Her face falls a little, but she nods. “Take care of yourself,” she whispers back.

\--

Gale had never thought of Madge in the context of her having to be perfect, but he supposes that it makes sense. If her family is hosting the Capitol citizens that visit, they have to be just as bright and wonderful as the citizens expect them to be. And every day throughout the rest of the Games when he sees Madge, she looks exhausted.

Things happen in a whirlwind. Gale has to switch to the mines after finishing his classes, Katniss and Peeta both win the Games, and Madge gets hit again.

Gale’s still been doing Sunday deliveries, even with Katniss gone, even if he and Madge don’t talk about the connection between them. So when he arrives on Sunday he doesn’t hesitate to ask.

“You said they don’t hit you,” Gale grits out.

Madge hurries outside and shuts the door behind her with a click, looking ashamed. She’s quiet for a moment, and Gale’s surprised at the amount of anger that’s bubbling up inside of him. “They don’t,” she whispers. Gale scoffs before he can help it. “It was them,” Madge says. “They can—they can do anything they want, here.”

It takes Gale a minute to realize who she’s talking about. “You let the Capitol citizens here get _away_ with that?”

Madge sets her jaw. “Why are you always acting like I have a choice in these things?” She reaches backwards for the door handle and Gale knows that look in her eyes now, it’s different than the one that’s full of fire. She’s preparing to flee. She’s like a deer, moments after Gale’s spotted it. Poised and terrified. “You still don’t understand,” she says. “If I’m not everything the Capitol expects me to be…” Madge trails off. “Might be just as bad as hunting.”

\--

Peeta and Katniss get engaged.

Gale expects it. Because while the Capitol and their TV programs won’t confirm that Katniss and Peeta are soulmates (it’s too risky, but they _must_ know), Katniss has more or less admitted it. And she’s scared, Gale knows she is, but she also loves Peeta.

That makes him ache in unexpected ways.

Not necessarily that Katniss loves Peeta, but rather she feels the way about her soulmate that someone’s supposed to.

He’s sitting on the couch in his small home in the Seam, Posy on his lap, when the announcement comes. He twirls his fingers through Posy’s hair and watches the announcers on the screen talking animatedly, whooping and hollering about how excited they are. And he thinks of Madge.

On screen, Katniss and Peeta share a kiss. What’s a kiss with a soulmate like? Gale’s kissed plenty of girls at the Slag Heap, but never Madge. Would it be different? Soulmates share their burdens, their pain, their scars. Nothing more. Nothing like a semblance of joy.

There’s a knock on the door that Gale hardly pays mind to. Rory darts out of his seat by the fire and rushes to answer it, hurrying past Vick who’s also excited to have visitors, and then they’re both frozen in the doorway. Gale only turns his head when he hears, “Is Gale home?” He scoops Posy into his arms and hurries to the door as well, surprised to find Madge standing there looking vastly out of place. She’s too clean for a place like the Seam, too pretty to be covered in coal dust. She offers a weak smile when Gale appears.

“Undersee,” he says in greeting.

“ _Wow_ ,” Posy whispers. “Gale, it’s the princess.”

He can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. “She’s not a princess, Pose.” Posy’s only seen Madge at important district events, and her love of fairytales and Madge’s status has confused her a little. He hands his sister off to Rory, who’s closest. “What’s up?” he asks.

“Gale?” Hazelle calls from the kitchen. She only has to take a few steps before she can see Madge, too. “Oh. Miss Undersee. It’s always a pleasure to see the mayor’s daughter.”

Madge’s eyes flicker to Hazelle, then to Gale. “I just…” she trails off before directing her attention to Gale. “I wanted to know if you wanted to take a walk?”

\--

It’s chilly outside, nearly winter, but nothing too bad. Gale readjusts his jacket and watches as Madge does the same. They walk in silence for a bit before she breaks it.

“They don’t know?” she asks. Her question is sadder than Gale expects it to be. “About… me?”

“It would put them at risk,” Gale tells her.

She hesitates. Shakes her head. “They’re your family,” Madge murmurs. “I thought…”

Gale pauses. “Does your family know?” he asks. She doesn’t look at him, but still she nods. “That it’s _me_?” he amends. And again, she nods. They must’ve been helping her hide Gale’s bruises and cuts all along. “Ma worries,” Gale tells her. They’re walking slower now. “She knows I’ve got someone, but she worries. And I don’t want to make it worse by giving her a name.”

“By giving her _my_ name,” Madge corrects tiredly. Gale stops completely now and Madge looks incredibly sad. She shrugs, but she’s still not looking at him. “I don’t know, Gale. When you said you wanted nothing to do with—with _this_ , I thought there were still some exceptions.” The moon’s out tonight and the glow turns Madge’s hair a soft silver. It makes her look even more out of place here in the Seam. She hesitates before finally looking up at him. “I just didn’t realize you actually hated me that much.”

“I don’t hate you,” Gale answers immediately. They always get stuck like this, looking at one another. He glances over his shoulder. The lights flicker out in the Seam and candles fill the windows. Everything falls quiet. “Let’s get to the meadow.”

\--

“It’s not that it’s you,” Gale tells her after they settle. There’s a cropping of bushes and trees that shields some of the cool night breeze, it might even be cozy. “That’s not why I didn’t tell my family.” Madge isn’t looking at him, but she never really does when they come to the meadow. Not that they do it often. But she’s always looking at the stars. _There’re so many_ , she said the first night. _You can’t see them in town_. “It’s just—the kids are young. And Ma would worry, like I said.”

“It’s… fine.”

They’re quiet again. “What’d you want to talk about?” Gale asks.

Madge shakes her head and then laughs to herself, pulling her gaze from the sky to look at Gale. And then she laughs again, looking down at her lap. “It’s ridiculous,” she tells him.

“Most things involving the two of us are,” Gale responds.

Madge is trying to fight off a smile, but it still looks kind of sad. “You know Katniss and Peeta are soulmates, right?” The question startles Gale. Because of _course_ he knows. The narrative of their story in the Capitol avoids it as well as they can but it feels obvious to him. But maybe it’s just because he knows Katniss. He nods. “They’re engaged,” Madge says.

“I saw.”

“And…” she trails off and laughs _again_. It’s muted, but it’s a laugh. Gale wonders what her real laugh is like. “It’s—aren’t you curious?” she bursts. Gale blinks a few times. “Don’t you want to _know_?” she carries on. “If Fate… the Universe…” she waits for him to nod or _something_ but he wants more elaboration, he wants to know if she’s thinking the same thing he is. “Don’t you want to know if it’s right?”

“Can Fate be wrong?” Gale questions.

“I don’t—I don’t _know_.” Madge drags her hand through her hair. “Just—forget it.” She stands quickly, laughing nervously. “This was stupid. I just—I know you want nothing to do with me, with this, and I just…” Gale stands too. He’s much taller than her. Madge’s eyes climb up his chest before meeting his gaze. “Never mind,” she breathes.

God, Gale wants to know.

They’re both frozen for a moment before he leans in slowly. Madge’s tongue darts out to wet her lips, whether it be in anticipation or nerves, and then Gale’s hand is carefully cradling her cheek. “I’m gonna kiss you,” Gale says gently. “Just once. Okay?”

“Just once,” Madge breathes back. Gale nods and licks his own lips, and then he kisses her.

Just once is not going to be enough. Madge sighs into Gale’s mouth and her hands fly up to latch onto his jacket and her lips move against his as though she’s wanted to do this for a long time. He tips her chin back to deepen the kiss and she steps forward to be closer and _just once_ is never going to be enough.

Because he can feel it. He can feel _everything._

They part and between them Madge gasps, “ _Oh_.”  

No one must’ve told her, either. That having a soulmate is more than sharing one another’s pain, it’s feeling _this_ , feeling everything that Madge is too.

Gale can feel the warmth in her chest, Gale can feel the goosebumps on her skins, Gale can feel the aching desire in her bones. It’s his, too. It’s more than bruises and scars, it’s _light_. She must be able to feel his as well. The swirling of his stomach, the shallow breath.

And he wants more.

They’re kissing again and Gale can feel the color yellow in his veins. He moves to sit with his back against a nearby tree and pulls Madge with him. Soon she’s in his lap, straddling his hips, her hands steady against the scruff on his chin. And they’re kissing and kissing and it makes sense. Having a soulmate is more than sharing one another’s pain and one another’s burdens, having a soulmate is feeling the universe beneath your hands.

When her lips break away from his and she kisses his chin, and his jaw, and his neck, Gale’s eyes fly shut. He rests his head backwards against the tree as his body hums. “Madge,” he manages, soft and weak, and he can feel her smile against his skin. “Christ.” Then she laughs a little, breathy, and Gale lets out a shuddering breath of his own. “That’s—”

There aren’t even words. He isn’t even sure what to say.

Madge nods, and then Gale reaches out to cradle her cheeks because he has to kiss her again. He has to feel this again. God, he wishes there weren’t so many layers between them. He’d do anything to be able to slide his hands up Madge’s back, across her spine. Why had he tried fighting this? Gale’s willing to give up everything to have another moment like this with Madge, with this girl so clearly full of sunshine.

That night they kiss until their lips go numb. Gale can’t wait to do it again.

\--

After walking her home and saying goodnight, Gale makes it back to his own home. Hazelle’s still awake, sitting on the couch by the fire. Gale’s dizzy. His understanding of his place in the universe has shifted in one night and he can’t think straight.

“Everything okay?” she asks carefully.

Gale settles on the couch and exhales deeply. “Ma,” he starts.

She reaches out, grabbing his hands and squeezing. “Is it her?” Hazelle asks. “Is she…”

Gale responds with a smile and a laugh that makes him feel light.

\--

While Gale wishes a couple of kisses could change everything, it doesn’t. Not exactly. They decide that they have to get to know one another, that kissing is great but they both want more than that.

Unfortunately, they don’t have the most time in the world.

Madge comes over some nights after Gale gets out of the mines and helps his mother cook dinner, and after they clean up the two of them sit on the couch and talk in soft voices while Hazelle gets the kids to bed. Madge glows in the firelight and it takes all Gale has to not kiss her senseless. And Gale will make the trek over to Madge’s some nights too. They’ll sit out in the garden, away from the Capitol citizens who’ve basically become permanent fixtures in her house, and twine their fingers together.

“It’s still terrifying,” Madge says one night as Gale rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “You and me.”

“Absolutely terrifying,” Gale agrees.

But he understands. And he knows she does, too.

\--

Gale didn’t think he would want to go to the Harvest Festival. He’d be tired from work and could definitely get more done in the woods, but Madge convinces him with just a few kisses.

It’s insane to him to think that weeks ago he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her. He knows so much more now about her beliefs, about her struggles in town. Though they’re vastly different than his struggles, he understands. They understand one another. The want the same things. They feel the same way. He’d been so terrified to even give it a chance he hadn’t even thought about how incredible it must be to _have_ a soulmate, to share life with them.

He’s lucky, he knows that now.

And when Madge walks down the staircase in the mayor’s house all dolled up, looking breathtaking and beautiful, Gale feels his heart racing in his chest.

He doesn’t understand the Universe, he doesn’t understand Fate, but he’s certainly not going to question it. They’ve led him to Madge.

They only manage a dance or two before Madge drags him out of the open room to the library. “You look beautiful,” he murmurs against her lips as his hips pin her to a shelf. She grins, her fingers getting lost somewhere in his hair. They only sneak in a few kisses before Mayor Undersee ducks his head into the library and Gale and Madge both startle. “Sir,” Gale rasps.

Mayor Undersee lingers in the doorway before letting out a breath of laughter. “Hello, Gale.”

“Hi, Daddy,” Madge says a touch softer.

Her father laughs again, shaking his head slightly. “Don’t be gone too long,” he tells them, and then he closes the door with a soft click.

Gale snorts into Madge’s neck and she laughs so loudly Gale could melt in the sound of it.

\--

Gale may have found his soulmate, and he may think he could fall in love one of the days, but that doesn’t mean his life is easy.

He’s got aching bones and sore muscles every day from the mines, and it’s getting harder and harder to feed his family when he’s not out in the woods every day. Katniss offers to help with money or food but Gale doesn’t want that pity, that sympathy, and he refuses. Part of him feels guilty though, because that’s food and money that could be for his family.

Katniss helps his mother get a job cleaning Haymitch’s place, which helps with the money some, and working at the mines helps too. But he’s just… tired. He isn’t sure anything out there can get him to wake up.

That is, of course, until Katniss tells him about what she’s seen. “Riots, uprisings,” she says. “They’re all over the country. Against the Capitol.” And Gale’s awake in an instant, needing to know every single detail of what she saw. Katniss tells him everything and then his body is humming, and he remembers what he’s wanted all along. _To see the Capitol burn_.

“We have to do something,” Gale urges. “You’ve got power now, Katniss, and—”

“Are you kidding me?” she cuts him off. “I can’t _do_ something! We’ve got to _run_ , Gale. Before they kill us.”

There’s anger there suddenly that Gale hasn’t felt in a long time. Because maybe Katniss has forgotten this, but Gale’s always on the verge of being killed. In the mines all it takes is one faulty swing. In the woods it’s a wild animal, or a Peacekeeper with a gun. In town it’s the chance that someone could see the scar Madge has across the back of her hand that actually belongs to Gale. His life is always on the line.

“I’m fighting,” he hisses out. “This is our chance.”

\--

Hours pass and Gale makes a mistake.

He’d always known that he was going to die one of these days, but strapped to a whipping post was never how he’d pictured it. He’s struggling against his binds—there’s a new head peacekeeper who does _not_ like turkey—and all he’s thinking about is Madge. But if he says anything then she’s dead too. And it’s just—it’s—

The first whip knocks the breath out of him.

The second hurts more than anything imaginable.

The third makes him wish that he’d black out.

(He doesn’t—not until fifteen lashes later.)

\--

Everything comes in flashes but the pain remains a constant. There’s snow, and Thom’s there, and Katniss is there, and people are shouting. Gale doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s never felt pain like this. Not even the unending ache that came with the death of his father can compare. He can’t see, and he can’t breathe, and he can’t _think_.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, how often he goes in and out, before things start to steady.

Madge is there.

He must be dreaming.

She’s standing in front of him, her hand gently resting against his cheek. “Madge,” he chokes. “How…” Because he can feel her, and the other people in the room are acknowledging that she’s there too. So he’s not dreaming, she’s here. “How’re you standing?” he manages.

“Darius,” she answers weakly. “He got to us just before.” Gale doesn’t understand, but the mayor must have more connections than Gale thought. “Used up three vials of morphling until I was knocked out,” Madge tells him. Her hand is shaking—whether that be fear or injury Gale’s not sure. “We had Katniss’s mom and Prim treat me as it happened.” One strip of flesh at a time, tending wounds that didn’t even belong to Madge. “Then when they were done—when it all stopped happening, they raced to you.”

“You shouldn’t be standing,” he croaks again. And then there’re hot tears in his eyes and it’s unfair, that this girl who’s tangible happiness has had to feel his pain. “I’m sorry.” Gale blinks hard. The room spins. “I’m so _sorry_ …”

The pain takes him another time.

He knows that she’ll have scars.

\--

In the days that follow, Gale can barely look at Madge. She’s always there, on her feet, moving around, and he wonders how much of it’s an act. She’s been forced to act her entire life for the Capitol citizens, for the president, and now she’s doing it for him. He’s disgusted with himself, that he could let something like this happen.

 _You’ve got to be careful_ , his father had told him all those years ago. And now she’s in pain because of him.

“We’ll match,” Madge tells him after he’s finally allowed off of the kitchen table. “Scars and all.”

Everyone knows now, that they’re soulmates. Gale’s whole family. Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch. Everyone knows. And that doesn’t scare Gale as much as he thought it would.

She offers a weak smile to Gale, trying to get him to look at her. But he can’t, because that hurts, too. “Don’t act like you’re okay,” Gale manages. He can’t _stand_ that. “Because I can feel it. And I know you’re not.” His voice is meant to be full of poison but he’s tired, and that’s just how he sounds.

Her smile falls at once and tears spring to her eyes and Madge nods. Her hands start shaking immediately. Gale reaches out and holds them in his own. “It’s hurts,” she whispers. And he can hear it, too. That pain. And he nods. “It hurts so _much_ ,” she cries.

Gale gathers her as carefully as he can and kisses her forehead, her nose, and just holds her close. And she cries into his chest for the both of them.

\--

They might have matching wounds and scars, but because of the way Madge’s were treated as they happened rather than Gale’s who were treated after, she does recover faster. They’re lucky it’s winter and she can bundle up. It’s easier to hide her wounds that way. Everyone knows that Gale has his, so he doesn’t have to hide.

The district becomes hell. It’s harder to get food, the mines close so no one’s working, and everything is awful.

“You deserve someone better than me,” Gale says one night after they’re both on their feet again. “You deserve someone who’s not going to fuck up and ruin both of our lives.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” she shushes him. “And it doesn’t matter what you think, because the Universe has decided otherwise.” Gale wants to argue this more. Or maybe suggest they stay away from one another. But he’d still feel her pain, and she’d still feel his, and avoiding one another wouldn’t change that.

She turns to kiss him then, and Gale remembers why he fought for her. There’s still light inside the both of them, and when they’re together they feel unstoppable. He rests his forehead against hers when they part and her smile feels genuine. “I love you,” she whispers as her fingers trace across his cheeks.

“I love you,” he whispers back, never having been more sure of anything in his entire life.

\--

The Quarter Quell is announced and Gale isn’t sure how things can get worse.

Everything feels like a losing battle.

\--

When the bombs fall, Gale can’t even remember the last conversation he had with Madge.

He’s sitting in the woods with his family after the Capitol bombs them and he’s searched for Madge again and again and she’s not here, she’s not. Which can only mean one thing: she’s dead. His burns are his own, his scars are his own.

Rory sits beside him and rests his head against Gale’s side. The district is still smoking.

Gale isn’t sure he’ll ever stop aching.

\--

Katniss is alive. And because Katniss is alive, they know that Peeta is alive too. When he gets beaten in the Capitol, Katniss has to be sedated in District 13. When he gets black eyes, she gets them too. When they inject something into him Katniss can feel the wounds but not the pain that comes after. She tells the doctors there’s an overwhelming sense of fear, but that’s it. They can’t do much else.

Gale’s in a trance.

Why does Katniss’s soulmate get to live while his burned under fallen debris? After all the fighting he’s done, why can’t he have a happy ending too?

He wakes up one morning with bruises around his wrists, so deep and dark that any sort of movement causes him pain. And he laughs. He _laughs_. Because this can only mean one thing.

“Madge is still alive.” He whispers it to himself a few times to see how it sounds. It sounds like a miracle.

But in the days that follow in which his body is bruised and beaten and sliced, Gale’s happiness fades. Because Madge is still alive, but it becomes clear that she’s imprisoned. That she's being tortured.

\--

They find her the same time they find Peeta. She’s unconscious, her body weak, and Gale gathers her in his arms amazed that somehow they’re still fighting. That somehow, they’re still together.

It takes her days to wake up. Peeta’s been hijacked, and Katniss is broken, but Madge is here. And things might not be okay, not at all, not in the middle of this unending war for justice. But Gale can breathe a little bit easier. When her eyes ease open and they find Gale she squints. But then her hand reaches up to her own swollen eye, before finding Gale’s matching shiner, and she laughs.

“No makeup to cover it up this time,” Gale whispers. And she laughs again. Madge reaches for him as he moves closer, desperate to kiss her.

Deep inside, he knows that they’ll both make it.

\--

With the war, there’s more pain and more injuries. Gale never understood why the universe decided soulmates should share their pain until the war is over, until he can climb into bed with Madge and traces his scars over her body. He understands her completely, and she him, and they _fit_. The two of them can take on the world together.

When Paylor is announced president, one of her first statements is in regards to soulmates.

“Fate is too strong of a thing to interfere with,” she announces to the nation, “and we’re no longer fighting it. Love is unstoppable. The ban of soulmates is lifted.”

Madge and Gale celebrate alone, in bed, with her legs wrapped around his hips and his mouth sucking hickeys on her neck.

\--

In the future, they’ll share their story.

They’ll tell their children why their backs are both battlefields. They’ll tell their children why they have similar scars. They’ll tell their children about love, about impossibility, about finding one another.

And when their daughter Lily gets a skinned knee that doesn’t belong to her, Madge laughs so brilliantly that Gale makes her explain.

“That was our first injury, too,” she tells him. “You liked to fall down a lot.” Gale kisses her senseless. “Do you know what this means, Gale?” Madge asks.

He smiles. “Something incredible,” Gale whispers back.


End file.
